TLDR
Nine has confirmed the Tuesday edition of Footy Classified, hosted by Eddie McGuire, will not return in 2027. The Monday edition stays for a 21st season, alongside The Sunday Footy Show and Footy Furnace.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Nine's 2027 AFL slate lists Footy Classified as a returning weekly programme, but the word "Tuesday" does not appear anywhere in the document.[1] What changed is the number of times it airs per week, and that distinction is the whole story.
Nine confirmed the decision formally in October 2026: the Tuesday edition of Footy Classified will not return in 2027. Nine cited its continued AFL coverage through The Sunday Footy Show, Monday's Footy Classified entering its 21st season, Footy Furnace, Players, and support for the My Room Telethon.
How the Tuesday show came to exist
Nine launched a second edition of Footy Classified as a Wednesday programme in March 2020, with Eddie McGuire hosting.[5] The show moved to Tuesdays after Seven shifted The Front Bar almost exclusively to Wednesdays and launched a Kane Cornes-led programme in that slot, making Wednesday the more contested night.
Once Seven reorganised its midweek AFL content and the scheduling pressure eased, the case for a second weekly episode thinned. Six years is a short lifespan for a television format, and the Tuesday show was always a contingency play rather than a permanent fixture of Nine's AFL calendar.
The panel that stays
Sam McClure, Matthew Lloyd, Damian Barrett and Jimmy Bartel fronted Monday nights through the 2026 season.[2] Tuesday, by contrast, ran with Eddie McGuire alongside James Hird and Cal Twomey in the same period.[2]
James Hird joined Nine's AFL lineup in late 2024, with the network billing his appointment as strengthening a two-episodes-per-week Footy Classified offering alongside The Sunday Footy Show and Footy Furnace.[4] Hird said at the time he was looking forward to bringing his perspective to Footy Classified.[4] Whether he returns to the Monday panel or exits with the Tuesday edition has not been confirmed.
The cost direction behind it
Nine told Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) investors in February 2026 that Total Television costs were expected to fall in the mid-single digits in FY26, with cost initiatives continuing through 2026 and beyond.[6] A second weekly studio panel show sits in the category of output that costs real money to produce and draws lower audiences than live sport.
Footy Classified has aired since 2 April 2007, making Monday's retained edition one of Australian football television's longer-running analysis formats. Nine's 2027 AFL slate also confirms The Sunday Footy Show and Footy Furnace continue, meaning the total number of AFL studio programmes on Nine falls by one next year.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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James Dore is founder and editor of Prompt the Market and Strategy Director at Bushnote, a Sydney strategy, SEO and AI search agency. He has a background in strategy, media and financial services, and led consumer product marketing at MONEYME. He writes on AI search, answer engines, technology policy and media economics.
